Busy 12th Night

I don't really know how to feel about this.

Twelfth Night (Jan. 6) will see more parading action this year as the Funky Uptown Krewe gets on a streetcar to ride along St. Charles Avenue after the Phunny Phorty Phellows.

The krewe was founded by a group of friends who gathered at Avenue Pub for the Phunny Phorty Phellows parade. "We thought, 'Why can’t we do this?'” krewe spokesman Craig Mangum said.

They used the Phunny Phorty Phellows as inspiration.“We didn’t want to step on their toes,” said Mangum, “yet we thought we could add something different.”

Something different is always welcome. We actually got something different for Twelfth Night a few years back when the "Societé de Champs Elyseé" started riding the Rampart Streetcar. The crosstown "rivalry" implied by that adds something fun. I'm not sure a second group riding the St. Charles line does. We've made a ritual out of meeting the Phellows every year and there's something about the mystery of it; the quiet evening broken for just the most fleeting glimpse of a party; that serves as a perfect thematic opening to the season.



It feels like a second group passing by might break the magic of it a little bit.  Or maybe not.  It's just Carnival nonsense in any case.

Did they consider maybe trying to do this on the Canal line, though?  Since we now have two Twelfth Night rides on two different streetcar lines, it seems like the natural way to expand the concept would be to get a third part of town involved.  Maybe have some kind of toast where they all converge downtown... Invite the mayor or something... I don't know... somebody besides me needs to sell this idea. 

More route diversity

Twelfth Night is getting kind of crowded. We usually walk out and wave at the Phunny Phorty Phellows blow by on their streetcar.  We do that because we live uptown and it's convenient.  Otherwise I wouldn't mind seeing the Joan of Arc parade one of these years.  Now there's a third option in the somewhat pretentiously named Societe du Champs Elysees.

The krewe was inspired by the completion of the new streetcar line and the investment it has brought to nearby neighborhoods below Canal Street, said David Roe, the founder and captain of the krewe.

“Already the attitude in the neighborhood has changed,” said Roe, who said he can see the streetcar’s last stop from his porch on Elysian Fields.

Roe was inspired to form the krewe on the first day of the new line, when the streetcar he was riding in was joined by a flash mob of accordionists.

Tourist attraction masquerading as a transit line inspires a hipster happening which in turn inspires... well, this. 

The musicians were told they had to stop playing partway through the ride, but Roe said the experience made him think of the Phunny Phorty Phellows, the small but well-established krewe that has marked the beginning of Carnival with its yearly streetcar rides along St. Charles Avenue each Jan. 6 since the early 1980s.

That’s when, he said, he “had an epiphany about Epiphany” and decided to form a small group to bring the experience to the downriver neighborhoods.

Sounds good to me. The more stuff we can get happening at once in different places during Carnival the better, as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, NOPD is always talking about how impossible it is for them to handle security for more than one thing at a time in this city.  Are they sure, they're ready? Or does Sidney Torres need to put some metal detectors on that streetcar?

Anyway, it's 38 more days til Carnival season.